Tech Interview Principles I Recommend

Adapted with permission from the original author: Pramod Yadav | LinkedIn

Hiring testers, especially senior testers or test leads, isn’t easy. Too many interviews still rely on outdated, trivia-style questions that don’t reveal real skills. As someone deeply involved in software testing, I believe interviews should be about judgment, experience, and human traits, not memory tests.

Here are the principles I follow when interviewing candidates. These ideas work particularly well for hiring senior roles, but some apply to juniors too.

First screening (Should be done by recruiters/referrers/HR)

• Discuss salary, position, location, and remote/hybrid preferences upfront.
• Avoid last-minute surprises.

Do’s

1. Define clear criteria
   • Be transparent with yourself and your team about what you’re looking for.
2. Screen resumes carefully
   • Look at open-source work or community contributions.
   • Portfolio projects or GitHub profiles are a good indicator that the person might be serious.
   • Good screening reduces poor fits and creates more positive interviews.
3. Show interest
   • If you’re excited about a candidate, tell them.
   • It helps them relax and perform better.
4. Focus on real work
   • Ask about past projects in detail: what, why, and how.
   • Keep asking follow-up questions to go deeper.
   • Tell them upfront you’ll ask follow-ups to understand them better, not to trap them.
5. Assess skills, not memory
   • Skip trivia. Focus on thinking, problem-solving, and application.
6. Look for human traits
   • Collaboration, empathy, curiosity: These matter as much as technical skills.

Don’ts

• Don’t ask fixed technical questions with answers anyone can Google (or ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or Llama)
• Don’t waste time testing memory instead of judgment and skill.

These principles help keep the interview process fair, human, and focused on real skills. They’ve worked for me in testing roles, but they apply broadly to technical hiring.

Further Reading

If you’re interested in building better hiring practices and growing as a tester, I regularly share ideas on testing, critical thinking, and craftsmanship. You can check out my guest blogs, and resources: Expert Guest Articles on Top Testing Blogs by Rahul Parwal